Chinese Spending Billions on California Real Estate

Wealthy Chinese with a few million yuan to burn will spend billions on U.S. real estate in the years ahead. The United States is the country of choice for China buyers.  Canada and Australia come in next at No. 2 and No. 3 respectively. That rich Chinese individuals and savvy corporations are buying up real estate in world class cities is no surprise at this point.

News of new Chinese real estate deals are popping up every quarter.  Similar moves happened with the Japanese back in the 1980s. Now it’s China’s turn. And by most estimates, they are snatching up high end real estate in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, in particular. In California, China is the third largest foreign buyer of real estate, following Mexico and people from the Philippines, according to Realtor.org.  Across the country, however, Chinese purchasers bought over $10 billion of U.S. real estate in 2011 and account for 9% of foreign U.S. house buyers, second only to Canadians, according to Juwai.com, a Chinese real estate website geared towards international home shoppers.

By comparison, and across the 50 states, the Chinese buy more U.S. homes than Indians, Mexicans or the British. While Mexicans are big in California and all across the south, China still ranks within the top five foreign nationalities buying real estate in 44 states.  China, for instance, is ahead of Mexican buyers throughout the more costly Northeast. They already are the number one foreign buyer group in states like West Virginia and Massachusetts. They are number two in New York, Maine, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming and Hawaii.

Companies are starting to cater to this niche globe trotter looking for their dream home. The Chinese are interested in real estate as both investment opportunities and also second homes outside of China. The properties they purchase as their own personal homes tend to be in the $1 million to $5 million range whereas as investment purchases range from $500,000 to $2 million, according to Affinity China.

Residential properties are as hot as commercial ones right now. Home prices in the U.S., coupled with economic uncertainties and tight regulations designed to curb a housing bubble in China, are driving record Chinese investments in the U.S. residential and commercial real estate markets, according to the Asia Society, a multinational think tank with offices throughout the U.S. and Asia Pacific.